And the Fair Land

[Guest guest]

There is a special place inside of me for the Wednesday before each

Thanksgiving.

That is because on this day each year without fail, The Wall Street Journal

re-runs what is to me the single greatest, most enduring and awesome piece of

editorial writing that I have ever read.

It is the late Vermont Royster's celebrated Thanksgiving Editorial, " And the

Fair Land " .

Each year that I read it on this day, it is as if I am, each single time forever

after, reading it for the very first time.

And when I read it, each year without fail, regardless of where I am, I cannot

help but choking up and being very deeply and profoundly moved.

It is, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg about the most immutable and sober things

in life, " Altogether fitting and proper " that the WSJ should run this ultimate

and beautiful paean to American bounty and freedom, because, as the leading

newspaper of and about American dynamic capitalism, it celebrates and stands for

the bounty, graceful good fortune, and endlessly renewing wealth that this great

land has given us. I am not talking about the extreme monetary riches of this

land; rather, I refer to the access to food, medicine, clothing, shelter and

warmth---basic elements of life---that broke millions and millions throughout

the world, and still does---but is, even thouge it doesn;t come CHEAP, available

to us here in this country with greater ease than anywhere else.

My late Grandfather first implored me to read this when I was thirteen. My

Grandfather was an unabashed PATRIOT, and an American Capitalist in the

strongest of ways. Born penniless like so very, very, very many of ALL of our

forebears, he grew up in abject poverty on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the

first ghetto for the teeming émigré Jews from Eastern Europe. Living in pitiful

conditions of utter squalor like millions of others, without a father to support

them, and with none of the advantages of American life that we take for granted

today, he, like all of yours and many, many other immigrants, strove, worked,

studied, saved, suffered, and prevailed. Working his way through NYU at night,

he became an Accountant and eagerly embraced the open portals of American

capitalism and free markets. This was a right and an act never afforded Jews and

many others like him in the plethora of aancien regime nations that they

dwelled in, lacking full citizenship, and utterly without the right to fulfill

their destinies in a free market. He was what you would clearly call an

'average' investor in today's terms, his sums never great; but, he did

exceedingly well in the market for the small amount of wage change that he

plowed into it---and lost it ALL on Black Friday, 1929. Wiped: OUT.

Somehow, still grateful that this nation which welcomed my beleaguered people

from stormy, hate-ridden and poor shores, he endured, reinvested, and built a

sound middle class average comfortable accounting practice. Grandfather

was your plain, average Middle Class guy, the kind of man who wore conservative

suits, plain ties and an American flag pin, ever so tiny, in his lapel. He was

an extremely frugal man all of his life, a very private, 'Old World' kind of

man, slow to anger, but when he did, his emotional state was never in doubt! He

was a proud man who believed in markets, and the risks that one had to shoulder

without whimpering when fortunes went bad.

Above all, he was a deep and thoroughgoing Patriot--not the Fourth of July

Hooray for Uncle Sam Red White and Blue kind of patriot. He had, like Norman

Podhoretz called, " a lifelong requieted love affair with America " . And he like

many other relatives of mine, passed this lifelong infatuation down to me. He

imparted his deep love of country to me, and hectored me, as a kid, to read this

Editorial with the admonition, " You will never, ever forget what a blessing this

land is, and how the Founders risked it ALL for US " .

Royster concludes:

" And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from

Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could

not this autumn be thankful for a fair land " .

Knowing all of you, and knowing how all of us, TOGETHER, suffer as a 'family'

with RA, and yet how we all struggle to persevere,

has enriched me, and giving me a blessing along with freedom that I cherish.

G-d bless all of you and yours. Happy Thanksgiving.

Jon

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB974854750443651043.htm